Latoya heaved a sigh over the top of her ale mug, sending puffs of beer foam flying across the table at me.
“Are we going to talk about what’s bothering you?” I asked her as I wiped the foam from my face. “I’m ready to listen, but—fair warning—if you expect me to pry it out of you a word at a time, you picked the wrong night.”
Latoya mechanically lifted a spoonful of the reeking stew, then wrinkled her nose and let the stuff slop back into the bowl. “This island is a cess pit. Don’t see why anyone stays here.”
“Latoya, I mean it. I’m not going to nod sympathetically at you for half an hour until you get to the point. You didn’t drag me to this tavern so you could complain about being at this tavern. Either spit it out, or let’s go do our drinking at home.”
“Sand ape.”
The muttered words were low and vicious. I spun around, trying to identify the speaker, but nobody was looking in our direction. All of the tavern’s greasy patrons had their heads down, bent over their cups of awful beer.
“Who said that?” I demanded, kicking my stool back. “What idiot thought that would be a hilarious thing to say? Come on, let me see your ugly troll face. I’ve got a knife and two fists and a history of making poor decisions.”
Latoya hooked a finger into my belt and yanked me down onto my stool. “Stop that.”
I slapped her hand away. “Are we just going to sit here while they spew that filth?”
“It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. If I wanted their faces smashed, I’d do it myself.”
“But I’m not going to smash faces. I’m going to smash testicles, make sure they can’t create small terrible children in their image. Future generations of mankind will, on average, be just a tiny bit less awful.”
“Lynn, I don’t need you to defend my damn virtue. Calm down and have another beer.”
Behind us, the muttering continued. “You think that’s actually a woman?”
A guffaw. “I think you’d have to shave it if you wanted to know for sure.”
“I dunno if shaving it would help. Probably isn’t much of a difference between a gorilla and a brown bitch, once you take off the hair.”
Against my better judgment, I looked in the direction of the voices. A slouching man grinned at me, licked his thumb, and thrust it in and out of the curled fingers of his other hand. I flicked a fold of my shirt out of the way to show him my long knife, and his grin spread wide, as if I’d done something adorable.
“For gods’ sake,” I whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”
Latoya rolled her cup leisurely between her fingers. “I haven’t finished drinking yet.”
“We could go back to the Banshee and dip water out of the bilges and it’d taste better than the beer in this place. Come on, let’s just go home. We’ll break into my mistress’s secret brandy stash and I’ll make one of those sticky date puddings you like—”
“I’m the one they’re taking shots at. If I can ignore it, you sure as hell can.”
She spoke casually, but she’d already shifted her weight, planting her right boot on packed earth. If someone got tired of coarse dirty talk and tried to put a coarse dirty hand on her, he’d walk into an uppercut that would break his jaw into seven pieces. Which would have some repercussions, but would also be hilarious.
I sighed, slouching. “Fine. Fine, but what’s the point? Why should we sit here and breathe their poison?”
“What should I do? Go hide in a hole? The world’s full of stupid. Can’t avoid it all.”
“But you can steer clear of the worst parts. Volcanoes? Dungeons? Taverns full of crap-spewing assholes? Those are not my destinations of choice.”
Latoya set down her cup with a solid thunk. “I don’t run, Lynn. Not from dumb peckerwoods like that. They’re dirt poor and they spend their days grubbing for food and grovelling at rich men’s feet. They spend their nights not having sex ever and calling women sluts because they don’t get to screw them. And when they really get depressed, they sniffle and rub their snotty noses and tell themselves, well, at least they weren’t born brown-skinned.”
“All right, you don’t run. But don’t you sometimes want to say, ‘Fuck these terrible islands and their assortment of terrible people’ and go back to Tavar?”
“Sometimes.” She rubbed her nose meditatively. “But there are plenty of assholes there, too. I once met a man in a caravan going through the Ughaion Desert—religious kind of knob-head. He spent a whole evening praying that someone would tie me to a stake and, quote, fuck some woman back into me, unquote. Refused to listen to a word I said. So I guess he missed it when I told him that the course he’d charted was at least twenty-five degrees off, and he’d end up going through the widest part of the desert in the hottest part of the year if he didn’t let me fix his math. Last time I saw him, he was plodding away from me towards five hundred miles of burning sand. Wonder how that worked out for him.”
I grinned. I do love a happy ending. “You should tell Ariadne that story, if you haven’t already. She bragged about you constantly while we were in Tavar—she could use some new material.”
Latoya smiled, but it looked more like a wince in the dim flickering glow of the rush-lights, and I understood. “You brought me here for a good old-fashioned bitching-about-your-girlfriend session, didn’t you?”
She toyed with her cup, sloshing the beer to and fro, which was a much better idea than drinking it. “You know something funny? Ariadne talks more about your mother than she ever talks about her own.”
“Why is that funny? Melitta was evil. My mother wasn’t, so far as I can recall.”
“You really don’t remember your mother?”
“No, actually, I decided that my life story wasn’t pathetic enough, so I made up the not-remembering-my-mother thing to take it over the top. Fuck’s sake, Latoya.”
“Nothing? You remember nothing about her?”
“I didn’t say that. I’ve got bits and pieces. Not the ones I would have chosen. Somehow, it was mainly the bad times that stuck.”
“Bad times like what?”
“I don’t know. Like the time my mother whipped the hell out of me because I dumped a bucket in the wrong place.”
She blinked. “Because you dumped a bucket . . .”
“It was a special kind of bucket. It was a special kind of place. What happened was . . . look, who cares? We’re talking about you and Ariadne. I’m guessing that when she brings up my mother, she doesn’t have bucket-related trauma on her mind.”
“No, she talks about visiting the kitchen. Playing with the two of you. Talks about how your mother would always save her a handful of dough to bake. I guess that remembering Elain is how she salvages part of her childhood, finds some memories that she doesn’t have to drown. If she couldn’t do that, she’d have to hate everything she comes from.”
“I come from where she comes from.”
“Which would be why she’s all messed up about you.” She tried another spoonful of the stew, gave up, and pushed the bowl away. “What with the guilt and the love and then more guilt. And the whole part where she murdered her mother for you. That hasn’t gone away. She’s just liquid inside. All contradiction and confusion. Lynn, do you really want her to rule Kila?”
I should have known I couldn’t avoid this conversation forever. “Not especially. I want somebody to rule Kila, though. Ariadne’s not my first choice, but she’ll do fine as long as she has plenty of help.”
“Who is your first choice?”
“You have to ask? Who’s always my first choice when I’m handing out impossible thankless tasks?”
Latoya’s eyebrows shot up, but she acknowledged the compliment with a nod. “I’d be the wrong choice. If you install a high queen from Tavar, it’ll feel like an invasion, a conquest. That’d feed people a ready-made excuse to revolt. You need a Kilan on the big throne, if you want the isles quiet.”
“I know. That’s why I haven’t brought it up. Trust
me, if I could see a way to make it work, I’d be picking out your coronation clothes already. I can’t, so Ariadne it is.”
Out of reflex, I bounced the spoon in my hands, testing the weight to see whether it would be worth stealing. It wasn’t. Cheap tin. “So that’s why you’re all wound up tonight? You’re worried that you and Ariadne don’t have a future if she’s going to end up ruling Kila?”
“I thought you’d understand.”
“I do understand. I just think panicking is kind of premature. It’s not as if the end of the war is anywhere on the horizon. We could all be dead tomorrow, so maybe you and my sister should concentrate on having lots and lots of sex, instead of making long-term plans.”
“Tell that to your sister. She’s already pulling away from me—she just doesn’t have the balls to say that’s what she’s doing. Sometimes we fight about stupid shit, sometimes she acts like I bore her. And the way she flirts with Regon—”
Her voice didn’t break or wobble or anything as obvious as that, but she couldn’t finish the sentence. I did the only useful thing that there was to do, which was to pour her another drink, and pat her back while she downed it.
“I don’t think that she’s actually interested in Regon,” I said, as I rubbed. “He’s just—you know—safer. She thinks that it would be less painful to have him and then lose him.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Not yet, you aren’t. But Ariadne’s always getting ahead of herself. Like my mistress. I spend half my time dragging her back to the here and now.”
The tavern didn’t have any windows; the door stood open so that greasy smoke could escape. Chin resting in my cupped hands, I stared out through the gap at the twilight gloaming. It was tempting to picture Darren bursting through the door, yelling, This was all a terrible mistake! My family is crap! Back to the ship forever! But I don’t like to waste my life in dreams.
Latoya drummed her fingers on the table. “I assign two guards to the captain for every one I put on you. Know why?”
“Is it because, unlike my mistress, I have some rudimentary ability to look after myself?”
She shook her head. “If we lost you, the captain would be wrecked. I don’t know whether we could get her on her feet again, but we’d stand a chance, because she’d want to keep fighting. She’d at least want to try. But if we lost the captain . . .”
“You’d lose me too,” I said. It wasn’t exactly a question.
Latoya flicked her eyebrows to signal agreement. “Sometimes, I like to think I know you well enough to guess where you would go. If the captain got iced, I mean, and you lost your stomach for the fight. But then I figure that it doesn’t matter how well I know you, considering how you operate. If the captain dies, you’ll disappear, won’t you?”
“I won’t jump off a cliff, if that’s what you mean.”
“It isn’t. What I mean is, you’ll just fade away into the background, won’t you? Find somewhere safe—or safer than this—and let life roll over your head. No more hero-making.”
“Hell, Latoya, I don’t know what I’d do. Sometimes I’m not even sure who I am, one day to another.”
I tried the beer again. Still awful, but at least my tongue was going numb.
“Right,” I said. “If we’re not going to leave, I’d better get another couple of bottles of whatever this is. You almost never bitch about Ariadne, so you must have a lot of gripes saved up. Make a list while I’m at the bar.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Lady Darren of the House of Torasan (Pirate Queen)
AS THE NIGHT wore on, it grew colder. Servants lit the torches, making orange light lick along the broad beams of the ceiling. The torches did nothing to heat up the cold hall, but they smoked and reeked and made the air taste of cinders. Between that and the uncomfortable stiffness of my new court clothes, I was beginning to feel decidedly peaky. It didn’t help that Konrad kept calling for fresh barrels of wine, and the wines were getting darker and stronger by the hour.
Round about midnight, someone poured me a goblet of ferocious plum brandy strong enough to dissolve a brass telescope. I gripped it blearily as I watched the performers cavorting about in front of the high table. Over the course of the evening, we’d had jugglers, magicians, midgets, and a eunuch who sang a rude song about a dairymaid and a baker’s boy while wearing a frilly blond wig and very tight pants. Now that everyone at the table was properly pissed, Konrad had brought out the dancing girls. Smooth-skinned and slender-limbed, they were, and every last one was dressed as though she had mislaid her entire wardrobe and had to improvise an outfit in a matter of minutes, using nothing but hair-ribbons and a couple of pins.
Back when I was twenty or so, the sight of those girls would have made my cheeks flame so hard that I would have had to put a tablecloth over my head or go and hide in the outhouse. Now I just watched, absent-mindedly concerned for the red-headed girl in the troupe. She was feeling chilly in her skimpy outfit. I could tell by the state of her . . . well, you know.
A hand clapped against my shoulder, and then Konrad’s face was beaming into mine. “Enjoying the show? I ordered them for you specially.”
“They’re lovely,” I said tersely, and took a gulp of brandy. That was a mistake; it nearly stripped the skin from my throat as it scorched its way down.
Konrad’s eyes glinted. “Do you want a closer look?”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t be shy, now. They certainly aren’t.”
“Really, Konrad. I’m fine.”
“Oh, come on. No need to pretend that you aren’t interested. What would you do if I called that red-head up here right now and got her to sit on your lap?”
“I would offer her a hot drink and a woolly blanket. They’re going to catch pneumonia if they don’t put on something warmer. Honestly, Konrad. I appreciate the thought, and all, but when you throw women at me, it’s . . . well, it’s kind of creepy.”
Konrad turned to me. Too late, I realized that he intended to talk business, right there at the banquet table, while I was still bloated with brandy and rich desserts.
“I’m trying to make a point,” he said. “I’m a man of the world, and you’re not going to shock me, no matter how unusual your tastes. You don’t have to give up women if you want to come home for good.”
I blew out a long breath, nervous and relieved and apprehensive all at once. “I was wondering when you were going to get around to that.”
“Well, let’s stop dancing around the issue. I want to give you a pitch.”
The red-head went into a jiggling, convulsive set of movements which made bits of her flop every which way. I wished that she would stop; the clinking of her jewellery was very distracting.
“Fine,” I said. “Pitch away.”
He settled back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “The Isle is struggling. You know that already. Father all but bankrupted us with his silly little wars. Year by year and season by season, we lost men and ships that we couldn’t replace. It was Father’s fault, but now it’s my problem. My advisors tell me that you’re a problem-solver.”
I wondered whether Konrad had bothered to find out anything about me on his own, or whether his advisors had done all the research and given him a summary. I rubbed the filigree on my wine cup, noticing the splotches of tarnish that no one had bothered to scour away.
“I can give you a loan, if that’s what you need,” I said, tracing a decorative metal swirl. “Enough to buy new oxen and seeds before the spring planting. New nets and sails for the fishermen, too. I don’t think anyone will ever wipe out the corsairs, but my fleet can drive them back, give you some breathing space.”
“That’s generous of you, and I appreciate the offer. But Torasan Isle is too far gone for simple remedies. You can’t treat a sucking chest wound by draping a handkerchief over it, and I can’t save the Isle with a breathing space and a few yokes of oxen. We have to be bold if we’re going to rise up again.”
“I thought you were going to get to the point.”
He smiled at me, reached into his mantle, and took out a silver dagger with a hawk’s-head crest. Gently, he set it down on the table between us.
Well, there it was. I drew in a long, shaky breath.
“I don’t blame you if you want to make me beg,” Konrad said. “Father threw you out like trash. It was cruel of him to do it, but it was also the worst mistake he ever made. Look at everything you’ve accomplished since he let you go. You renewed people’s faith in the nobility—”
I fumbled with my goblet and nearly dropped it. “I did what?”
“Darren, think of what you’ve done. You went into exile naked and friendless, but Father couldn’t strip away your bloodright, and look what your blood achieved. You rose from obscurity, from nothingness, by sheer force of will. It’s the proof of what they tell us as children, that greatness is born. It’s the fire in the soul, the glory in the blood—and it’s in everything you do.”
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